Crypto prices drop, recovery continues to slow

Bitcoin, the leading cryptocurrency, traded lower on Tuesday, falling by 3.22 percent to $48,497.55 at 6:31 p.m. Riyadh time.

Ether, the second most-traded cryptocurrency, traded at $3,241.55, down by 3.21 percent, according to data from Coindesk.

Meanwhile, sales of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) have jumped to new heights, another sign of how well the market has interacted. Visa announced that it has paid $150,000 for CryptoPunk NFTs, a type of blockchain token, to add to its historic collection of commercial artifacts. The company also noted that “NFTs represent a new chapter for digital commerce.”

CryptoPunk sold more than $86 million and sales so far in August amounted to $332 million, while the average price of CryptoPunk for

the month was $199,069, more than double the average of last month, according to CryptoSlam data.

Virginia-based MicroStrategy has announced that it has added 3,907 new bitcoins to its massive original cryptocurrency holdings. Its bitcoin holdings totaled 108,992, according to a tweet from CEO Michael Saylor.

According to a filing released on Tuesday by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the company has spent about $177 million on its recent bitcoin purchases, with an average price of about $45,294 per coin.

While MicroStrategy’s share price, which some investors use as a proxy for the price of bitcoin, has fallen from its March highs of $1,273 to $718, CoinDesk reported

Data tracked by Glassnode shows that cryptocurrency exchanges received 16,606.80 BTC on Monday, the highest daily net inflow in over a month. Over the past week, more than 29,000 BTC were transferred to exchanges.